Many faucets are equipped at their discharge ends with faucet aerators. The functions of such aerators have been to introduce air into the discharge stream in order to minimize splashing, to qualify the discharge of the spout into a straight stream and, finally, in more recent years to limit the flow rate from the spout to nationally accepted flow rate standards.
In some instances, simpler devices known as stream straighteners have also been used on faucets. These devices do not introduce air into the stream and tend to be less than satisfactory in straightening up the discharge. Finally, these devices have not been designed to limit flow rates to recently adopted national standards.
A major difficulty with existing stream straighteners is their inability to bring the discharge stream into an acceptable straight discharge. This results from changes in the methods used to manufacture faucets in recent years. These changes are of such a nature as to greatly disturb the discharge from the faucet, causing violent turbulence. It is well known that if the aerator or stream straightener is removed from many faucets, the discharge is completely unacceptable and, in some cases, tends to spray out into a large cone shape.
Stream straighteners presently available on the market are not capable of restricting flow rates to currently accepted national flow rate standards. These stream straighteners do not include a flow restrictor. Therefore, the only way to reduce the flow through this type of stream straightener is to reduce the size of each individual discharge hole on the bottom of the straightener. This becomes impractical as the size of each such discharge hole must be reduced to such a small diameter that manufacturing expense and quality control problems become severe.
An object of this invention is to provide a stream straightening device which is of simpler construction and, therefore, lower cost than an aerator. Another object is to improve the straightness and quality of the discharge. Still another object is to control the discharge rate in order to meet the required flow rate standards.